Khaleda asked to leave house within 15 days
April 21, 2009
Leader of the Opposition and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia was served with a notice yesterday to vacate her Dhaka cantonment residence within 15 days. The Directorate of Military Lands and Cantonments sent the notice in the afternoon. In response to the developments, Khaleda Zia held a meeting with BNP standing committee members and senior lawyers last night. Talking to reporters at the chairperson’s Gulshan office, BNP Spokesman Nazrul Islam Khan said the notice has no legal basis. “This is purely out of personal grudge. We’ll face it politically.”
He observed the government has a lot of important issues to resolve. When people are suffering from an acute shortage of electricity and the law and order situation is deteriorating, it is busy with a house.
“It seems ousting Khaleda Zia from her house is their [government's] only task,” he added.
In the notice, the Directorate of Military Lands and Cantonments gave five reasons for requesting Khaleda to return the house to the military estate officer.
Firstly, there is no way to sell, lease out or hand over a military property inside cantonment area to a civilian, according to the Military Services Regulation. Neither the government nor the president, or any other authority, has the right to do so. So the proposal and all activities regarding the leasing out of the land on July 10, 1981 were illegal.
Secondly, military properties can be abandoned but the land was not abandoned for Khaleda Zia.
Thirdly, considering public interest any property of a cantonment can be auctioned to a person, according to the Cantonment Administration Rules. But the provision of public interest was not considered and there is no scope for such consideration.
Besides, it is illegal to conduct political activities inside the protected area of a cantonment. This is also a threat to military discipline, safety and security of defence establishments, the notice mentioned.
Lastly, the army cannot lease out any military land to a person, according to the Cantonment Act.
Earlier in the evening, Brig Gen (retd) Hannan Shah, adviser to the BNP chief, told The Daily Star, “Asking her to leave the house within 15 days is a violation of the Cantonment Act.”
The former prime minister’s counsels Rafiqul Islam Miah and Mahbub Uddin Khokon said they will soon file a writ petition with the High Court (HC) challenging the legality of the notice.
Caretaker of the house, Mohammad Yunus, received the official letter from cantonment officials at around 4:00pm and later handed it to Khaleda, who has been living there with her family for around three decades.
On April 7, the government cancelled the allotment citing a number of ‘anomalies in the way the house was allotted’.
The decision came at a cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
A week before that, Hasina told parliament that the BNP chief was given the Shaheed Mainul Road house ‘bypassing the rules of the Cantonment Board’.
She urged her to leave the house of her own accord so that a block of flats could be built for the families of the army officials killed in the BDR carnage on February 25.
Quarter Master General Lt Gen Jahangir Alam Chowdhury was asked to take necessary measurers to implement the cabinet’s decision.
That an individual cannot be allotted two government houses was the rationale mentioned for cancelling the allotment.
Highly placed sources in the administration however told The Daily Star that Khaleda’s activities and remarks following the bloodbath at BDR Pilkhana headquarters were the reasons behind the cancellation.
According to some ministers, the cabinet in 1981 did not allot her the Mainul Road house; it rather gave her one on a 1.5 bigha land in Gulshan the following year.
As the cantonment authorities cannot allot anyone a house, the allotment of the house in BNP chairperson’s favour was illegal, they argued.
Khaleda, widow of late president Ziaur Rahman, has been renting out the Gulshan house since its allocation in 1982.
AL lawmaker and former law minister Abdul Matin Khasru in parliament said the 99-year lease on the cantonment house is subject to a number of conditions including restrictions on political activities there.
“But Khaleda has violated the stipulations by carrying out political activities from that house and allowing Dandy Dyeing to set up an office,” he reasoned.
Khasru wanted to know if the government would cancel the allotment for a breach of the lease.
In reply, Hasina said her government would soon take a decision about it.
Source: The Daily Star
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